Garlic Scapes and White Bean Dip
Garlic scapes were one of the options this week in my CSA share. They are a fleeting spring time delicacy, available for a very short time. Last year I used my scapes to make a Garlic Scape Pesto, which is just about the most common garlic scape recipe you’ll find if you Google the ingredient. It was good, but this year I wanted something different. I wanted other flavors to complement the garlic, but not in a safe-from-vampires-and-humans-too kind of way. Let’s taste it and enjoy it, but keep it mellow.
Then I stumbled upon this New York Times recipe from 2008. It wasn’t for pesto. It was for a white bean dip.
I’m currently having a love affair with white beans. Sure, they have 3 points per half a cup, but they are also a Simply Filling or Power or Core food, depending on what year you started going to Weight Watchers. That means they are nutritionally dense, loaded with fiber and protein and they are filling. Eat them and you won’t be feeling hungry again in a half hour.
The only thing that is not Simply Filling in this recipe is the olive oil. The New York Times recipe calls for 1/4 cup. I reduced it to 1/8 cup. That’s 2 Tablespoons, or 6 teaspoons. Have one serving, and dip baby carrots or celery sticks, you are good on the Simply Filling plan and have had one teaspoon of your healthy oils for the day.
Garlic Scape and White Bean Dip
adapted from this recipe in the NYTimes
3 large garlic scapes, chopped into 1 inch or so pieces
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice, more to taste (I used a little bit more)
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt (I used a little bit more)
Ground black pepper to taste
2 cups cannellini beans (the NY Times recipe called for 1 15 oz can. I cooked up some dry beans and measured out 2 cups)
1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil (half of what was called for in the original recipe)
- Put chopped garlic scapes, lemon juice, salt and pepper in the food processor and process until they are finely chopped.
- Add cannelloni beans and process until you get a rough puree.
- Drizzle the olive oil down as you continue to process the mixture.
- Test for taste and adjust with more salt or lemon juice as needed.
Enjoy with baby carrots, celery, raw cauliflower, or if you are splurging maybe some thin wedges of pita bread.
1/4 cup serving = 4 Weight Watcher PointsPlus points
Fulfills the Simply Filling plan plus 1 of your two free servings of healthy oils for the day.
The Best Iced Tea Ever
For the most part I’ve given up drinking all soda (or pop, as you call it in the midwest), both regular and diet (I’m sort of down on artificial sweeteners right now, too) in favor of green iced tea that I brew myself and drink unsweetened. But really, lots of times water is preferable to green iced tea. Green tea has only 10 percent of the caffeine in a cup of coffee, and it’s been cited as a helper in everything from weight loss to prevention of ovarian cancer. It just gets sort of bland after a while.
But then, yesterday I tasted the best iced tea ever made. Along with our meals at PF Changs my mother and I got their Jasmine Blackberry Green Iced Tea. Unsweetened it has zero calories, zero Weight Watchers Points Plus and tastes as if it’s lightly sweetened. It is by far the best iced tea I’ve ever ever had.
So of course today I was looking around for a version I could buy at the supermarket. In my travels I found this China Mist Blackberry Jasmine Iced Green Tea
We eat at PF Changs fairly often and love the jasmine blackberry tea they serve. Looked all over for something like it, found China Mist and are delighted that it is the exact, same tea!
So I’ll be buying this tea today. I’ll let you know if they are right.
A Classic Pico De Gallo Salsa
Classic Pico De Gallo Salsa
After moving back to the east coast from California it was hard to find a really good salsa. Not a lot of Mexican restaurants around here, and most of the stuff the supermarkets offer are overly sweet and not worth it. So I came up with this recipe which also happens to fulfill the requirements of Weight Watchers Simply Filling /Core foods, as long as you don’t eat it with chips. (Other serving suggestions offered below.)
8 oz can of diced tomatoes (I used canned most of the year when the really good farmers market ones are out of season)
1 jalepeno pepper, diced (without seeds is milder. include the seeds if you want it super hot)
1/2 green bell pepper diced
one small white onion diced
handful of fresh cilantro leaves chopped finely
juice of half a lime
half teaspoon garlic salt
sea salt to taste
pinch of white sugar to taste (I often omit this)
Combine all the ingredients in a big bowl and toss them until well combined. Taste and adjust flavorings. Refrigerate. Best after a day in the fridge after all the flavors have a chance to combine.
To keep it Simply Filling / Core, enjoy this as a salad dressing, a topping for fish, or as a dip for fresh celery or cauliflower (or baby carrots or raw snow peas pictured here).
snow peas can be used instead of chips with this salsa
Arctic Char with Turnip, Celeriac Puree and Steamed Kale Broccoli
Lunch is often my favorite meal of the day because I don’t have to cater to anyone else’s picky palates. And I can cook something healthy and delicious. I live with a husband and two boys and it is impossible to please everyone. For lunch I only have to please myself.
So today I pulled one of my precious Arctic Char fillets out of the freezer. These fish are farmed in Iceland and are on deemed okay to eat by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch which keeps an eye on sustainable fishing practices. And they are delicious. A salmon flavor but milder and fattier. But fattier in that good way — lots of Omega 3 oils.
This entire meal fulfilled the requirements of the Weight Watchers Simply Filling Technique.
I sprayed a small pan with PAM, sprinkled the fillet with Mrs. Dash and sea salt. After the pan was very hot I seared this arctic char fillet on both sides and then turned down the heat and put a pan lid on top to let it finish cooking.
I peeled and diced two celeriac and two turnips and boiled them until tender and then pureed them with an immersion blender and mixed in some fat free plain Greek yogurt and garlic salt.
I steamed (in the microwave) some kale broccoli ( actually a variety of kale) that I’d blanched and frozen last week.
Then I put it all together and garnished with a dollop of fat free plain Greek yogurt.
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